Trojan asteroids

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About Trojan asteroids-

• The Trojan asteroids are some of the more mysterious asteroids that humanity has discovered. 
• These asteroids are made up of two swarms, trapped both in front of and behind Jupiter as it orbits our star. 
• In 1772 the French mathematician and astronomer Joseph-Louis Lagrange predicted the existence and location of two groups of small bodies located near a pair of gravitationally stable points along Jupiter’s orbit. 
• Those are positions (now called Lagrangian points and designated L4 and L5) where a small body can be held, by gravitational forces, at one vertex of an equilateral triangle whose other vertices are occupied by the massive bodies of Jupiter and the Sun. 
• There are currently over 4,800 known Trojan asteroids associated with Jupiter. 
• About 65% of these belong to the leading group (L4) located 60o in front of Jupiter in its orbit, while the other 35% cluster around the L5 Lagrangian point and trail 60o behind Jupiter.
• Lucy will study the Trojan asteroids to discover if they are, in fact, relics of our early solar system.
• These images are the first in a series of planned observations designed to measure how the Trojan asteroids reflect light at higher angles than is observable from Earth. 
• Though the asteroids are still just single points of light in these images, seen against a background of distant stars, the data will help the team choose exposure times for Lucy’s close-up observations of its targets.
• Lucy will fly by these asteroids in 2027 and 2028 as the spacecraft travels through a swarm of small asteroids that lead Jupiter in its orbit around the Sun. 
• Lucy is just more than a year into a 12-year voyage that entails close observation of nine of Jupiter’s Trojans the first space mission ever to visit them and two main belt asteroids.

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